September 22, 1999

Take My Name Please! Just About Everyone Else Is Using It.

By DAVID J. WALLACE

n today's marketing-crazed
world, your name is your fortune.
It is also your Web site, television
program, candy bar, fragrance and
corporate logo. Easy work for Oprah,
Sting, Martha Stewart or Puff Daddy
and old news for Prince, who has
moved on from a regal title, preferring iconic status.

They're David Wallaces, but they're not the author: from top, the
Vanderbilt quarterback; the novelist, and the urban planner.

Another big name, Rodney Dangerfield, perfected the phrase "It's
not easy being me" in his trademark
routine about getting no respect. Audiences might not have taken the
same advice from Jacob Cohen --
Dangerfield's name at birth --
and surely wouldn't have called his
toll-free number, 800-RESPECT, or
Web site, www.rodney.com.

I'm like millions of other mere
mortals who use first and last
names, personal identification codes,
I.D. cards, fingerprints and retinal
scans to introduce ourselves. And
after nearly three years trying to get
some respect, and credit, it's time I
make a name for myself.

With all due respect to Dangerfield, it's too easy being me.

Several people in Philadelphia enjoyed signing my name and tapping
my good credit after a box of checks
was stolen in transit from the printer
and several bogus checks were
passed in my hometown. Soon afterward, in summer 1996, a phone call
from a security director at a Maryland bank asked whether I was a
black man with an address in Bethesda.

Equipped with my name and address, Nigerian scam artists obtained my Social Security number.
Then the adventures began.

Like thousands of other people in
this country, I became another statistic of "true-name fraud," where
anybody's credit history can be taken over with just enough accurate
information to keep computers satisfied and unsuspicious. In quick succession, banks, credit card companies, phone companies and other
companies were calling to report
overdue balances.

My response was typical: requiring credit reporting agencies to post
fraud alerts on my reports so that
any company checking my records
to open a new account was required
to first call me at home to confirm
that I was actually involved. In one
ironic instance, I walked home to
receive a call from a cellular phone
store then returned to the store and
picked up my new phone 10 minutes
later.

Don't get me wrong. I have as
much self-esteem as anyone and no
desire for fame. For years, conversations have dead-ended as people ask
whether I am related to the former
Alabama governor, more well-known
journalists Mike or Chris or author
Irving. The star quarterback at Vanderbilt University, a famous novelist,
a respected urban planner and countless other people are also David Wallace. And I've claimed the e-mail
territory dwallace in several online
outposts, so I often get mail for Doug,
Dennis, Dayna and countless others.

But the technology that fuels true-name fraud and easy credit has done
precious little for those of us who get
tangled in its web of ones and zeroes.
Complaints, affidavits and letters
are still sent by fax and mail. Want a
copy of your own credit report to
review? You will have to call a toll-free number and wait for a copy to be
mailed to your home address.

Q-Space Inc., based in San Francisco, has provided 18 million credit
reports over the World Wide Web
since it began two years ago. The
Internet has turned every owner of
property into an online merchant
and rendered every buyer clueless
about the seller's credentials. This
landscape makes the Wild West look
like high tea. Instead of getting hit by
a stray gunfighter's bullet, you may
be nicked by a misdirected electron
that lodges squarely in your personal
data file.

"Web users are a lot more aware
of their personal information," said
I.O.A. Eze, the president of Q-Space.
"With credit, you never know when
you're going to need it. If you were in
the home-buying market last year
and had to wait six months to repair
your credit you'd pay 1.5 percent
more in mortgage rates."

Federal law requires the main
credit reporting agencies to provide
a free copy of an individual's report
once a year. And if an applicant is
refused credit, he has the right to
review the report that prompted that
decision.

But credit reporting is only a portion of consumer profiling, said Patricia McGinnis, the managing director of Mainspring, an E-commerce
consulting company in Cambridge,
Mass. Strategies like "purchase circles" that identify buyers of a particular item can either build community, or they can reveal buying habits
of companies and individuals who
are unaware that such profiles are
being compiled.
"Today, the technology to track
you and collect data about what
you're doing is expanding much
more quickly than the technology to
protect you from it," Ms. McGinnis
said. "Consumer privacy laws restrict pretty seriously what can be
done with personal credit data, but
there are no laws yet on use of commercial transaction information."
People are not going to go to great
lengths or great expense to protect
themselves. Surveys show the anxiety level of using the Internet dropping, not rising.

WHERE TO GET A CREDIT REPORT

The following sites will provide a copy of your credit report:

CHEX SYSTEMS - www.chexhelp.com or (800) 428-9623. This is a bank
and credit union network of reports filed by institutions about
customers suspected of having overdrawn accounts or of trying to use
fraudulent information to open an account.

EQUIFAX - www.equifax.com or (800) 685-1111. As one of the three
largest credit reporting services in the United States -- with Trans
Union L.L.C. and Experian -- Equifax often is used by credit unions and
banks that issue credit cards and loans.

BANK SITE - www.banksite.com is a clearinghouse for
information about consumer credit.

I CREDIT REPORT - www.icreditreport.com is where
consumers can see their credit reports quickly and inexpensively on
line. The reports are available by mail for free.

Even in the bricks-and-mortar
world, computer networks cannot
keep pace. For more than a year, I
could not give money to a bank.
Opening a simple checking account
became a Brobdingnagian adventure
thanks to Chex Systems. Its job is to
share information from one bank
with others, yet it takes no responsibility for the accuracy of the data.
Banks supply the records, and only
they can correct them. When your
Chex Systems report arrives, it provides no contact information, only
the branch reporting a problem. I
had banks in Virginia, New York and
Pennsylvania report fraudulent attempts to open an account in my
name. You're on your own to find the
bank, identify the person with authority to alter the records, convince
them of the error and then confirm
that Chex Systems has cleared its
reports.

The catch? Individuals cannot see
their complete Chex Systems reports. Only bank employees are given real-time access to the company's
database. Internet discussion groups
routinely receive queries from frustrated consumers seeking a bank
that is not part of the Chex Systems
network and that might allow them
to open an account.

Defending your good name is becoming a quixotic, lifelong task. The
surprises just keep coming in this
minefield where data overload, privacy and Internet connectivity all
intersect. In March, I got one of those
unexpected phone calls from a national home improvement chain asking about a debt of nearly $12,000.
The company had extended credit to
a David Wallace in Flushing, N.Y.,
who had actually made several payments since November 1997 but had
recently become delinquent.

Large corporations with understanding shareholders or sympathetic bankers can write off their bad
debts as "acceptable risk." For consumers, one late payment can scar a
credit rating. We don't have a department of employees, the time or
money to police our own reputations.
Yet, it can be as important as any
other asset and a lot easier to steal.
Despite the arrest in Maryland of
one man who wanted to be me, I
know the adventures aren't over. Not
by a long shot.

A special note to mortgage lenders
out there: When my application
comes up for review, please keep in
mind that I didn't play college football, haven't written any books, never lived in the Bronx or in Maryland
and use my middle initial, J, to avoid
confusion.

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